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MUMBAI: Tourism New Zealand says the industry has turned a corner with the release of 'Tourism 2025 - Growing Value Together/Whakatipu Uara Ngatahi' and its aspirational goal to reach $41b value by 2025.

Chief Executive Kevin Bowler says Tourism 2025 has brought the industry together and has forged a shared vision for where we want to get to and how with a collective focus, we can get there.

"Tourism New Zealand has agreed to align its business plan with the overall direction set out in Tourism 2025," he says. "It is appropriate that this is a framework for alignment, rather than just a list of operational tactics, as there aren't many silver bullets when it comes to achieving the growth we're aspiring to achieve.”

"Instead, this framework is about helping the whole industry to all move in the same direction, targeting the areas with investment in time, energy and money that will deliver the greatest economic returns for the industry and of course the country."

Kevin says that Tourism New Zealand's work under its current three-year marketing strategy fits closely with the 2025 framework and the organisation is using its additional funding provided by the Government to drive actions across Tourism 2025's five central themes.

"The Tourism 2025 theme 'targeting for value' is perfectly aligned with Tourism New Zealand's objective to increase the value of international visitors to New Zealand," he says.

"To help achieve this, we have increased our investment in international business events, premium visitor segments, and special interest travel sectors recognising these visitors typically spend more than the average holiday visitor.”

"We are working closely with airlines and airports to encourage growth in airline services to 'grow sustainable air connectivity', and have a number of joint venture partnerships in place, most significantly a $20 million per annum joint marketing agreement with Air New Zealand. Our involvement with the i-SITE network, Qualmark and the China market through the ADS and PKP programmes are our key contributions to the Tourism 2025 theme "drive value through outstanding visitor experience".

"By identifying and attracting visitor segments that visit New Zealand in the shoulder and off seasons, particularly through our new focus on emerging markets like India and Indonesia, we are assisting the industry improve its performance under the theme "productivity for profit".

"Finally, Tourism New Zealand has an entire team dedicated to providing research analysis and "insight" that is distributed to the industry on the tourismnewzealand.com website."

Tourism New Zealand was a key contributor in the development of Tourism 2025 and supports the ambitious goal of raising the combined value of international and domestic tourism to $41 billion by 2025.